BEIRUT: A leading real-estate firm said on Thursday that property sales in Lebanon reached impressive figures in 2007 despite the economic slowdown and tense political situation.

According to Coldwell Banker-Lebanon, the value of property sales in 2007 reached $4.219 billion compared to $3.151 billion in 2006.

"Last year was the best year in both property sales and transactions since 2001," Elie Harb, the general manager of Coldwell Banker told The Daily Star.

He added that the value of property sales in Beirut alone reached $1.6 billion compared to $1 billion in 2006.

The sales of properties in South Lebanon reached only $23.6 million and Harb attributed this low figure to fears that Israel might invade again.

Coldwell said that it obtained all the statistics from different reliable sources, including the Finance Ministry's real-estate department.

The Directorate of Real Estate at the Finance Ministry said that the number of property transactions in the country reached 154,158 in 2007, up by 21.4 percent relative to 2006.

Bank Audi, which published the Finance Ministry's report, said that the rise in real-estate activity could be attributed to several reasons such as the increase in population, higher demand by expatriate Lebanese, the relatively low taxes in Lebanon, the improvement made in terms of property transfer operations, and the facilitation of foreign ownership.

"Nevertheless, although the first half of the year saw a good 7 percent growth, the cumulative yearly double-digit rate is mainly coming from a 38 percent increase in the second half of 2007 in comparison with the same period of 2006," Audi said in its report.

Harb said these transactions include both houses and land.

Another real-estate broker said Lebanese expatriates working in the Gulf still prefer to buy properties back home.

"The Lebanese work for many years in the Gulf region and other countries to make a decent living and the first thing he or she thinks about is buying a house or land in Beirut or other areas," the broker said.

Harb stressed that he is not surprised by this trend.

"People will buy houses just as they buy consumer goods even if the prices are a bit high," Harb said.

He believes that 97 percent of the property sales were conducted by Lebanese nationals.

"The Gulf nationals who bought properties in Lebanon last year do not represent more than 3 percent of the total transactions," Harb said.

This information could not be verified by other sources, and methods of calculation can vary widely.

The Finance Ministry's real-estate department said this half-year rise, in turn, mainly stems from an 82 percent surge in the third quarter of 2007 relative to the same quarter of 2006 that witnessed a freeze in real-estate operations during the 34-day war with Israel that summer, and to a smaller extent, from the 14 percent year-on-year increase in the fourth quarter of 2007, noting that in the last quarter of 2006, the number of property transactions more or less resumed its pre-war level.

The ministry said property tax receipts increased by a significant 32.2 percent during 2007 to LL459.7 billion.

"But this is again the impact of the 95.3 percent growth reported in the second half of the year that compares to the odd second half of 2006, which was largely shaped by the summer 2006 war and following events, whereas during the previous six months the receipts went down 16.4 percent," Audi said.

The majority of collected property taxes in 2007 were in Beirut, with 42.2 percent of the total amount. This sum was followed by Baabda with 19 percent, the Metn area with 15.8 percent, the Kesrouan area with 9.3 percent, the South with 5.4 percent, the North with 4.8 percent, and the Bekaa area with 3 percent.

In addition, construction permits went up last year.

Figures released by the Order of Engineers of Beirut and Tripoli reveal that construction permits totaled 9,037,609 square meters in 2007, up by 4.0 percent from 8,692,834 square meters in the previous year.

Harb said it was only natural to see steady growth in construction since "life must go on."